I live up in suburban Ft. Worth and saw something similar - bees, not yellow jackets, were swarming in a garbage can outside an icecream/gelato shop where customers drop their used cups. I thought that the melted ice cream probably had sugar in it like nectar and the bees were getting their food this way.

I haven't noticed honey bees, but there are a lot of wasps around mine. I figure hummers are used to them and can deal.

Linda

Of course I dont live in that area but early in the season I had a couple of honeybees coming to my feeders daily. What I did was weaken the mix in the feeders from 1-4 to 1-6 for a little while. The bees left but the hummers still used it. Dont know if this will work or if you even want to do it but it did work for me.

Steve

Thanks! I did read about reducing the sugar:water ratio and it is supposed to work. I've gotten other information from people too. Final line is that I think that I have a hive probably somewhere not too far away, and since I've got one of the few yards still green with grass and plants, that is why they are hanging around. Time will tell!

Install a feeder for the bees. You can use a chick water-er from a feed store. Put in a few small pieces of sponge for them to hang on to. Put it in a place in the yard where they won't be a nuisance.
Bees are on the decline in the US. We need to take care of them. I haven,t seen one all summer.

I don't know what kind of feeders you have, but some are better than others at keeping out insects. Cheapo plastic Perky Pet feeders tend to be pretty good, while a lot of fancy, pretty glass ones tend to be not as good, especially if they have those downward pointing tube sippers.

I am quite a distance from TX, but; the hummingbirds were all over here this year in the Nashville Area.I was enjoying the birds at the two feeders we had right outside our kitchen windows hung under the eave on hooks until the bees came. Sadly, had I thought about it I should have known where those bees came from. I had a handmade regular bird feeder with a small little bee cone inside. All I saw were a couple of bees. That couple sure produced hundreds as it took a week to kill them all with wasp and hornet spray. I have a few birds back to include a rare one for this yard. That rare hummer for this area is a light irredescent green bird. I am not speaking of the one with the green head in the east that drives the others off. We still have that one.